Jack hurtled after it. He ran alongside, leapt on to the boarding step, and dived head first through the open window. Davis, intent on driving the horses ever faster, didn’t see him.
Richard was lying face down on the floor. Jack swiftly untied the scarf round his wrists and helped him on to the seat.
‘You’ve got to get out,’ he panted. ‘Davis will kill you for certain.’
Richard stared, uncomprehending. Why did this boy, who knew of his terrible sin, care whether he lived or died?
‘The traffic will slow him,’ said Jack. ‘Be ready to jump.’
But Davis didn’t let the traffic slow him. He kept whipping the horses till they were wide-eyed and lunging.
He’d changed his mind about the bank. It was too risky. He veered off the main road and into familiar backstreets heading for King’s Cross station. He had enough of a start to be on a train and away before anyone could stop him. Redbarn Road was a good short cut.
‘We should have gone to the police!’
April hardly had breath to say what she and Rupert were both thinking as they ran. They’d agonized after Erskine’s revelation that Richard Featherstone had been in the room. Should they return to the flat roof as arranged, or tell the police that Jack had unwittingly gone to the house of a man who’d commissioned murder? But it was too late now, they were almost at Jevons’ yard. Perhaps Jack had returned safely, after all.
They slowed as they saw the sweep’s cart emerge slowly from the lane into Redbarn Road. Jevons didn’t see the green carriage hurtling towards him. Nor did his horse. Nor did Rupert or April. One moment the narrow street was empty, the next the carriage seemed to fill it, bearing down on them headlong. There was no way it could stop. The driver didn’t even try.
‘Go on, damn you!’ he screamed, lashing his terrified horses, but at the last moment they panicked, their sweating bodies rearing away to avoid the collision. The carriage slewed sideways, its wheels skidding and cracking, then slammed into the sweep’s cart and overturned, while the sweep’s cart itself ended crushed against the nearest wall.
Davis leapt from the carriage as it toppled, landing deftly on his feet near Rupert and April. For a moment there was a terrible silence, broken only by Jevons’ wheezing as he tried to extricate himself and free his frightened horse. Then another carriage came rapidly into view and half a dozen men, dressed as labourers, jumped down before it stopped. Davis didn’t need to look twice: labourers didn’t travel by carriage. Somehow, the crushers were here in force.
He saw a face he recognized at the carriage window. Tony Tolchard. And he saw Tolchard’s lips move. Then a lean and smart older man leapt from the carriage and pointed towards Davis.
‘Take him!’
Davis turned to run, then saw an opportunity and seized it.
April realized too late the danger she was in. Davis had grabbed her arm.
‘Not a step closer,’ he yelled at the approaching police.
He backed away, dragging April with him. Rupert bravely made to move after them.
‘Not one step!’ Davis warned again, and Rupert stopped.
April wriggled and kicked and Davis jerked her arm harder.
‘Cut that,’ he snarled, retreating into the maze of alleys and crumbling, boarded-up buildings across the lane from Jevons’ yard. He was familiar with Redbarn Road, but not with this wedge of abandoned property behind it, and suddenly feared he was blundering into a dead end. He had to get up higher, to see the lie of the land, find an escape route. He crashed through a rotten fence, then climbed a wooden staircase, little more than a ladder. The treads were rotten and April screamed as her foot went through.
‘Cut the noise as well,’ warned Davis as he pulled her roughly upwards.
Constable Adams was closest behind the fugitive and hostage. He heard April’s cry and glimpsed her as Davis yanked her away towards the rooftops. Colonel Radcliffe joined him.
‘Shall I follow, sir?’ asked Adams.
Radcliffe shook his head. ‘Not yet. We can’t risk the girl.’
As Davis climbed higher, a new dread filled April: her fear of heights. She ceased trying to break free from her captor’s grip and clung, shaking and whimpering, to the nearest broken wall. Davis gave her arm a violent shake.
‘Move, damn you!’
But April couldn’t move. Her legs were trembling and the distant ground seemed to pull her towards it.
‘Don’t look down.’
Straining upwards, Davis didn’t hear the whisper, but April did. Jack was close by, crouched behind a crumbling chimney stack.
‘He’ll shove you off if you don’t go with him,’ mouthed Jack. ‘Look up, not down. You can do it.’
Davis turned sharply but saw only the trembling girl. Jack had disappeared. Davis gripped April’s arm even tighter and tugged viciously. April stared up at the sky and allowed herself to be dragged higher.
Behind them, Jack found a different route, risking a swift clamber up a gable of broken slates until he was clinging beneath the ridge from where he could look down on Davis and April. He saw them emerge on to an area of flat roof at the end of the block, and heard Davis curse loudly as he realized he had trapped himself on high as surely as in a cul-de-sac at ground level. Between him and the next block was a wide gap. Below the gap, a drop that no one could survive. With or without the girl, he would have to leap the gap to escape. He hesitated. He didn’t know if he could do it.
Davis looked down at the street beneath him, at the expectant police, the well-dressed boy kneeling beside the wretched sweep, at Richard Featherstone standing unscathed beside the carriage. Tony Tolchard was there too. Davis spat into space and gauged the gap again. He would beat the lot of them yet.
‘The boy’s up there too,’ murmured Richard, gazing upwards in awe. ‘Davis hasn’t seen him.’ Constable Downing, standing close by, nodded.
‘Aye,’ he said quietly, with a glance at Tony beside him. ‘Glory knows where he gets his courage from.’
He’d removed the handcuffs while in the carriage, so that Jack would suspect nothing when his father appeared. Circumstances had suddenly changed but no one had ordered him to reapply the cuffs. Not even Tolchard would think of escape while his son was risking his life.
High above, Davis loosened his grip on April’s arm.
‘We’re going to jump,’ he told her roughly. ‘You first.’
April looked down and recoiled. She stumbled backwards from the edge, breaking free of Davis, and Jack saw his chance. He balanced on his toes, then launched himself from the gable end and crashed down on the strongman, knocking him off his feet.
A gasp of admiration and fear ran through the watchers below.
Davis quickly recovered and tried to get his hands round Jack’s neck. Locked together, they rolled away from the edge of the roof, then back towards it.
Constable Adams, panting hard, appeared on the roof beside April. Davis saw him, tore himself away from Jack’s grip and leapt at the gap. He landed heavily on the other side, his boots dislodging bricks and mortar. The loose stone blocks gave way beneath him and his feet followed. Mortar and masonry showered down into the alleyway below.
Davis cried out and grabbed desperately for some kind of handhold. As he did so, he was aware of someone hurtling over him. Jack landed lightly on all fours, well away from the crumbling edge and, turning to Davis, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, trying to drag him to safety. But the more Davis struggled to get a foothold, the more of the fragile brickwork beneath him he kicked away and suddenly, amid shouts of alarm from below, a small avalanche of bricks and blocks and rotten window frames cascaded away from under his boots. The small flat roof itself caved in and Davis and Jack tumbled downwards amid the rubble. Nothing fell on top of them and Davis was briefly elated to find himself back on the ground. He turned and grabbed Jack, still coughing in a cloud of brick dust. One hostage was as good as another. Davis dived in through the gaping side of the building, dodgi
ng the great wooden props that shored the remainder of it up, and pulled Jack behind him out into Redbarn Road.
Richard Featherstone was the first to see him.
Davis stepped back against the wall, recovering breath. He would demand safe passage in return for the boy’s life. But before he could speak, he saw Richard shouting, then running towards him. Davis was momentarily confused. He heard a heavy creaking noise above him, felt the wooden prop beside him shift. Then Featherstone was on him, a Featherstone he didn’t recognize, tearing Jack from him and hurling the boy out into the road.
‘Get away, Jack! Get away!’
Richard’s screaming voice was drowned in the roar from above. He clung to Davis with all the strength he’d never used in his life before, pressing him back against the moving wall; away from Jack; away from escape.
As Jack stumbled clear and turned, he saw the whole frontage of the shored-up building slowly collapse. Then the two men straining against it disappeared beneath a hundred tons of falling, roaring brickwork.
‘Here, get this down, boy.’
The words banged into Jack’s brain. They were the very words his father had used in the Cap and Cockerel as he forced the first pint of beer into his hand. But this wasn’t his father’s voice. His father had sneaked away, not knowing if his son were dead or alive. Through the swirling dust and falling masonry, Jack had glimpsed him running off down the street when everyone was looking the other way.
Jack didn’t know what he felt about this latest desertion; but it was Arthur Jevons standing in front of him now, a large mug of tea in his hand.
‘There’s plenty of milk and sugar in it,’ he said kindly. ‘Best thing for shock.’
‘Go on, Jack. Drink it.’ Rupert was sitting on a small stool beside him.
April was sitting on an even smaller stool on his other side, eating a thick slice of bread and jam.
‘It’ll do you good,’ she said.
Jack silently took the mug and glanced around. The Jevons’ house had never been so crowded. The yard gate was propped open and policemen bustled in and out past Mrs Jevons and her small children. Jack didn’t remember getting from Redbarn Road to his old home. He didn’t remember much after Richard Featherstone’s scream and the glimpse of his fleeing father.
‘Where’s Davis?’ he asked suddenly.
Rupert was relieved to hear him speak at last.
‘He’s dead,’ he replied. ‘Under the wall. Richard Featherstone too. The police are still digging but there’s no hope.’
Jack nodded. Then he said: ‘You know it was them I overheard?’
‘Yes,’ said April. ‘We’ve told the Colonel man about that, and everything else we know too.’
Jack stared at her in surprise.
‘When?’
‘Since we’ve been here in Mr Jevons’ house,’ she replied, licking jam from her fingers. ‘You’ve missed the last half hour. Shock, like Mr Jevons said.’
‘Colonel Radcliffe, that’s him over there in the smart clothes,’ said Rupert quietly. ‘He asked Mr Jevons if everyone could come in here while we wait for transport to the police station.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’ve said about the grapnel too,’ added April. ‘I’m going to show a crusher where it is a bit later.’
‘It’s almost bound to have Davis’s fingerprints on it,’ added Rupert, ‘which will prove he used it to get to the window.’
‘Oh.’
Jack was finding it all a bit much to take in. He sat in silence for a moment then turned to April. ‘How did you get down?’
April nodded at Constable Adams, who was standing nearby. ‘He gave me a hand.’ Then she blushed and admitted crossly: ‘No, he didn’t give me a hand. He carried me down like a baby.’
Jack smiled and shared a look with Rupert.
‘You are allowed to have things you can’t do,’ he suggested.
April wrinkled her nose. ‘No. Never.’
Colonel Radcliffe heard their voices and came over to them.
‘Ah… Master Jack Tolchard… No, don’t get up.’ He crouched down in front of Jack.
‘You know we were looking for you?’ he said seriously. ‘That a warrant was out for your arrest?’
‘Sir.’ Jack sat very still.
‘Breaking and entering is a serious crime,’ continued Colonel Radcliffe quietly, ‘which carries severe penalties.’ He looked hard at Jack. ‘There was a disturbance in Nunwell Street last night and one of my officers thought he saw you in the vicinity.’
Jack licked his lips but said nothing. Constable Adams was now standing next to the Assistant Commissioner. Radcliffe looked up at him.
‘Are you able to identify Jack Tolchard as the boy you saw?’ he asked. ‘Able to identify him positively. Absolutely positively. Without any shadow of doubt?’
Adams stared down at the Colonel and hoped he was reading the clues correctly.
‘No, sir,’ he said, standing to attention. ‘Not absolutely and finally positively.’
Colonel Radcliffe nodded.
‘In that case, we shan’t need to mention the matter again.’ He smiled and stood up. ‘Do you have any questions, Jack?’
Jack shook his head, then as the Assistant Commissioner turned away, he suddenly said:
‘Sir. There won’t be trouble for Mr Jevons, will there? He’s a good master and never, ever, asked me to climb a chimney.’
The Colonel smiled again and shook his head.
‘Thank you.’ Jack hesitated. ‘And there’s my father. What will happen to him?’
Colonel Radcliffe shrugged, briefly grim. ‘He’s done himself no good by running off,’ he said. ‘But before that, he helped us, so I’ll do my very best to ensure he doesn’t hang for his part in it all.’ He patted Jack on the shoulder, then put out his hand for Jack to shake. ‘And for your own part, lad, well done.’
April snorted as Radcliffe walked away. ‘They’ve got to catch him first.’ She shrugged. ‘Still, so long as he doesn’t come near you again I don’t care what happens to him.’
They sat in silence for a moment then Rupert spoke.
‘What about you, Jack?’ His voice betrayed his concern. ‘You haven’t even got a room to go back to now. Where will you live?’
‘There’s room here for him if he wants,’ wheezed Jevons, standing over them. He was holding a mug of tea and a thick jam sandwich which he thrust at Rupert. ‘Here, I expect you need a bit of sustenance too.’ He took a deep, noisy breath. ‘Goodness knows how we’ll make a living without a cart, though. All I’ve got left is Old Duke and a pile of matchwood. But Jack’s more than welcome.’
Jack got unsteadily to his feet. He wanted to say there was nothing in the world he would like better, but before he could speak, a loud male voice boomed from the lane.
‘Is this the place?’
‘Oh, gosh. It’s my pa.’ Rupert stood up, mug in one hand, jam sandwich in the other, and waited for the inevitable.
It took some time to explain to Mr Shorey why his son was not at school but drinking tea in a sweep’s kitchen. Rupert let the Assistant Commissioner do all the talking.
‘Nasty business,’ said Mr Shorey. He turned to his wife. ‘I told you we should have sent him to boarding school. You don’t get mixed up in things like this at boarding school.’
‘No, dear,’ murmured Mrs Shorey.
‘Ma?’ Rupert spoke suddenly to his mother. ‘You agree, don’t you, that Mr Jevons is the best sweep you’ve ever had?’
‘Yes, dear.’ Mrs Shorey nodded vaguely. She hadn’t given the matter much thought but her son looked rather serious.
‘Well, without his cart, he can’t work and we can’t have our chimneys swept properly. Can we buy him a cart?’
‘What?’ Mr Shorey glared at his son.
‘You can take it from my pocket money, Pa,’ said Rupert. ‘For as long as necessary.’
Mrs Shorey looked around the little home and at the jam sandwich in her son’s
hand; generosity from people with so little to give.
‘I’m sure we can help purchase a cart,’ she said. ‘Possibly one of those new sweeping machines too.’ She turned brightly to her husband. ‘After all, dear, think how much we save by not sending Rupe to boarding school.’
Mr Shorey stared open-mouthed at his wife. Then a small voice broke the silence.
‘Rupe!’ April was trying not to giggle. ‘You never said you get called Rupe.’
Rupert pretended not to hear. ‘And what are sgoing to do, April?’ he asked. ‘Apart from look after your gran.’
April thought for a moment.
‘I shall solve another crime,’ she said. ‘One with a proper reward next time.’ She paused. ‘You can help if you like, Rupe.’ She turned to the sweep’s boy and nodded. ‘And so can Scarper Jack.’
Scarper Jack and the Bloodstained Room Page 13
